I do. I wish everyone did. It's like a cheat code for life. Stress? Insomnia? Bam. No drugs required.

I do recognize that it'd be weird as fuck from an outsiders perspective though.

Surely every one has experienced these sensations in one form or another some time in their life, i'd imagine.

For what its worth, the stimulated throwing out of certain radiations by the human organism may decrease the overall energy in a manner that hinders its growth and depletes its health. If you set out on farming certain sensations, know that the organism has to reproduce those substances/energies required to experience those sensations.

Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:24 pm

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2053
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

Experiments have proved that acclaimed experts with wine don't know wine when they taste it absent typical cues such as label, bottle, glass, temperature, color, scent.

Experiments have proved that acclaimed experts with wine engage an entirely different brain neurology that you and I when tasting wine that has been properly presented, poured, etc.

Anyone who has studied neural networks for even a little while finds these two observations perfectly compatible. Perception -is- reality for the trained thinker.

All pain is relative to the brain subjectively experiencing it.
Why not the same with pleasure, even the ecstatic degrees?

My own experience with this stuff is that my existing frisson reactions to music sre tenfold stronger since I started experimenting with ASMR triggers. I almost cried listening to El-P the other day. El-P. You know, the Brooklyn melonhead with too many sci-fi influences and all those daddy issues. I almost wet myself.

That's a feedback loop of existing senstion plus awareness of sensation. Neural pathways reinforce themselves with repeated use, and some of those have synergy with actual chemical sensations like dopamine release. This is why Pavlov's dogs salivated when a bell rang, it's why mommy is a slot jockey now, and it's an adeuqate explanation of why putting a name on this thing and seeking it out will strengthen (and, to a certain extent, supplant) the basic sensation.

Wetware isn't bugfree and most of its circuitry is emergent through use. At least that's my understanding.

Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:38 am

NeuroA champion of Kurtis SP

Joined: 19 Jul 2002
Posts: 7852

Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:17 am

DeadAwake

Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 582
Location: Aus.

Its just a bit of advice that i'm trying to live by, because from my experience it seems to hold some weight.

Best economize yo self!

Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:46 pm

Elorza

Joined: 18 Sep 2002
Posts: 1003
Location: east coast

I watched that ASMR video from a while back Mark linked to-which was of course incredible-and immediately went to search for more videos...which resulted in page after page of videos of women whispering at me? I feel like I missed a few steps.

Anyway, the ASMR effect is something else. I was giggling like a fool during the matchbox sequence.

Mon Jan 06, 2014 6:00 pm

DeadAwake

Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 582
Location: Aus.

Mark in Minnesota wrote: Experiments have proved that acclaimed experts with wine don't know wine when they taste it absent typical cues such as label, bottle, glass, temperature, color, scent.

Experiments have proved that acclaimed experts with wine engage an entirely different brain neurology that you and I when tasting wine that has been properly presented, poured, etc.

This to me is a reflection of the focusing on external details and not the inner content of a thing. It seems to be the same thing when we see, for instance a policeman, priest or doctor in uniform. We are generally conditioned to believe, (have an automatic sub-conscious reaction), that they are an authority, can be trusted. The uniform is a visual cue, as well as a certain manner of expression, use of certain terms, perhaps a posture. etc.

Furthermore if we take a doctor in a medical institute, the back story of a certain kind of drug, the bottle its contained in, the label on the bottle, the form of the medicine. All factors create a state of suggestibility in the person which reinforces the pre-reaction that the drug/medicine is effective. It may not be the case.

In a group of people who do not rely on such cues, mainly visual from what you said, such as a group of blind folk, these abnormalities would be vastly decreased. Or even as you said, more casual people, who are not subjected to this ceremony of presentation.

Basically what i think is that these "experts" are professionals in monkey business. I would like to look at some of the details of that study.

Mark in Minnesota wrote: Anyone who has studied neural networks for even a little while finds these two observations perfectly compatible. Perception -is- reality for the trained thinker.

All pain is relative to the brain subjectively experiencing it.
Why not the same with pleasure, even the ecstatic degrees?

I haven't really studied neurology, i should look into at least its fundamentals. I agree pain and pleasure all differ according to the subjectivity of an individual. We all have different thresholds to others and even our own thresholds change throughout our life.

However a sensation is a sensation, whether considered pleasurable or painful. The majority, i believe, would consider a soft breeze soothing or neutral whereas the scratching of a blackboard would be unpleasant. Just cause a sensation is pleasurable or painful, doesn't necessarily mean it is good or bad for the body. A "good" thing may be bad and a "bad" thing may be good too, or maybe neutral. Did I interpret what you said correctly?

Mark in Minnesota wrote: My own experience with this stuff is that my existing frisson reactions to music sre tenfold stronger since I started experimenting with ASMR triggers. I almost cried listening to El-P the other day. El-P. You know, the Brooklyn melonhead with too many sci-fi influences and all those daddy issues. I almost wet myself.

That's a feedback loop of existing senstion plus awareness of sensation. Neural pathways reinforce themselves with repeated use, and some of those have synergy with actual chemical sensations like dopamine release. This is why Pavlov's dogs salivated when a bell rang, it's why mommy is a slot jockey now, and it's an adeuqate explanation of why putting a name on this thing and seeking it out will strengthen (and, to a certain extent, supplant) the basic sensation.

Wetware isn't bugfree and most of its circuitry is emergent through use. At least that's my understanding.

Did you have the volume jacked up? If not than thats very good, maybe experimenting with ASMR sharpened the sensitivity of your senses.

I used to exploit frisson. Never knew what it was called until you mentioned it. To a point would my whole body would vibrate or shake. I feel it weakened something within me when i would engage in it.

I believe in the human organism, in connection with breathing we accumulate and store energy in the celiac or solar plexus. From which electricity is taken, that is the storehouse of nervous energy, and is discharged to certain points of the body. This electricity than is dispersed throughout the tissue, thus in this case creating the tingling sensation. This is kind of based on my observation that when you are intensely nervous or have a sudden shock of fear, it feels like your celiac/solar plexus has been smacked. Like a buzzing around your sternum, lower ribcage.

ASMR may be beneficial by "exercising" the nerves from time to time or we may need to get rid of superfluous energy to maintain better health. Of course, these are just theories ive accumulated and mess around with.

My details are probably wrong. But the main point, the overall principle is that if the body expends something it has to be recharged.

Tue Jan 07, 2014 12:22 am

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2053
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

Elorza wrote: I watched that ASMR video from a while back Mark linked to-which was of course incredible-and immediately went to search for more videos...which resulted in page after page of videos of women whispering at me? I feel like I missed a few steps.

Anyway, the ASMR effect is something else. I was giggling like a fool during the matchbox sequence.

Haha, I deleted that whole post. I'm surprised anyone saw it before I got back there and clicked edit.

DeadAwake wrote: Basically what i think is that these "experts" are professionals in monkey business. I would like to look at some of the details of that study.

My assertion is that there are some people who have finely trained themselves to be susceptible to certain kinds of bullshit, and while the bullshit has no basis in objective, measurable reality, the training can result in perceptions anyway. Stuff that originates from within our own brains, rather than from external stimulus.

Wine tasters and ASMR tingle-heads are both making a "we know it when we see it" assertion where this is literally true: we only know it when we see it.

I brought ASMR up in this thread because this thread is a "we know it when we see it" thread and, the creepy pillows on page 2 were creepy to me in the same exact way that a lot of ASMR content is creepy to me. And oddly comforting in spite of it.

DeadAwake wrote: the main point, the overall principle is that if the body expends something it has to be recharged.

Frisson has been observed to cause dopamine release in the brain. Dopamine is the key neurotransmitter for the reward systems in your brain. There are real biological limits to how long you can experience the frisson sensation because there's a chemical element to it.

ASMR hasn't been studied to the same degree (so far the highest profile thing I've heard about is some undergrad work at Dartmouth, not yet published) but I would not be surprised if there's a chemical element at play there too. Maybe even the same one, or a related one.

I doubt my senses are sharper than they were a year ago. Highly doubt it. I would not be at all surprised if my brain has new neural pathways. If I have trained myself to get the tingle response from stuff that would not have done it previously.

And why wouldn't that be what happened? The reward systems in our brains are one of the areas that we know are highly plastic. We can (and do, all the time) train ourselves to derive pleasure from doing things that we know will result in a good outcome. Anticipation and reward are closely tied to one another, and I've "learned" that I experience a reward when I consume this kind of content.

As a kid I got this sensation all the time, but only from being fascinated by things, from feeling like I was on the brink of figuring something out. I used to call it "the burning in curiosity." It wasn't until I started Googling around and finding vocabulary for it that I found out most people were getting it from weird stuff like crinkling potato chip bags and men and women with foreign accents looking into the camera, pretending to give you neurological examinations. The first few times I watched the videos they did nothing for me, but just having put words to the sensation made me notice when I was getting it, and sometimes when I caught myself getting it for no reason I watched one of those videos and fuck if the tingles weren't like ten times stronger... sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y
That's a link to Bjork in 2007, taking apart a CRT television and explaining why it isn't doing evil things to her brain. The part where she's pointing at the capacitors and comparing them to buildings in a village just lights my brain on fire. Not every time, not every day, but pretty reliably. I'm not the only one.

But I don't think it's a release of electricity. My best guess is that it's a release of neurotransmitters in the pleasure/reward centers of my brain, and that it happens because when I was a kid training me to become me, I conflated certain kinds of verbal and visual cues with the idea that there was going to be a prize at the bottom of the cereal box.

Tue Jan 07, 2014 2:07 am

DeadAwake

Joined: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 582
Location: Aus.

Neuro wrote:

Here there is a great deal.

What is quoted, "In the beginning was the word", this corresponds exact. The knowledge that was gathered in previous epochs, and lost in the centuries, we are only re-discovering. For better or worse.

Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:14 am

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1593

One of my friends does animation for Fox's ADHD, here's a gif he just threw up on his Facebook, which I find quite hypnotic.

For whatever reason I just can't stop watching the drops of drool spill off the chin.